Who You'd Be Today
by Orokid
Summary: Hermione thinks about Harry on the eve of his fifth death day, and can't help but regret not being able to tell him...


**_orokid: Okay… I was really depressed and thinking about my best friend who died four years this May, on the twenty-third. So… I wrote this, thinking about how Hermione, if she were in love as I was with my best friend, would feel about standing at the grave of the one she now misses the most. Please enjoy, or… get depressed… or whatever…_**

**Who You'd Be Today**

Hermione Jane Granger could feel the pain return as she looked out her window, gazing out to the warm rays the sun plastered onto the Earth this fine day.

But it wasn't really a fine day. Not when your best friend had met Death's Door and knocked more times than he should have.

Harry James Potter had died five year ago, today.

_Sunny days seem to hurt the most.  
I wear the pain like a heavy coat. _

She could feel that feeling of having him near her as she walked the mourning streets of Diagon Alley, signs all over the place giving percentages off for the HP Memorial Day. She knew he would only smile and shake his head if he knew what a fuss the wizarding world made of his demise.

She would give everything in her life, even that as well, if it meant the return of the young man who had been so tragically lost to the world so long ago. Sometimes, she swore that she could see him on the streets, watching her as she lived her life. And, as much as she wanted to believe that he was silently watching her, alive and well, she knew that he wasn't there.

He never was. Every time she'd turn her head to look at where she had seen him, he'd be gone in an instant, his Cheshire smile the last thing to disappear before fading out of her sights completely.

And he always did fade away.

_I feel you everywhere I go.  
I see your smile, I see your face,  
I hear you laughin' in the rain.  
I still can't believe you're gone.   
_

She stood before the monument that had been created for the young hero that had fallen on the battlefield, thinking to herself, letting the tears fall as if nothing was going to stop her. The bushy haired young woman just couldn't help the tears. They'd always be there, falling down her face.

All because the young man who so valiantly lost his life while protecting her and the rest of the world was dead and gone to this world. She wouldn't tell anyone this, but she had a secret that she kept from everyone- although she could bet that just about anyone who looked at her after all this time who know immediately just what she hid.

She, Hermione Jane Granger, had fallen in love with the tragic hero, Harry James Potter, the boy who hadn't even finished his story on a perfectly okay note like everyone else had the chance to. Unlike everyone he had protected, he was the only one now who didn't have the choice to die peacefully from old age.

Harry's life had been drastically changed, just by one man- Tom Riddle.

And it just wasn't fair.

_  
It ain't fair: you died too young,  
Like the story that had just begun,  
But death tore the pages all away. _

She couldn't tell anyone how much she missed him, but that was because everyone thought that the way they missed the fallen hero was worse than anyone else's pain. But who had the worse pain? A person who swore under all oaths that they had been a good friend, a lover, etcetera, to the Boy-Who-Lived? Or a person who had been his closest friend, who loved him more than anyone could ever truly imagine, someone who wouldn't go out a publicize just how close they were before his death?

To her, no one could ever take the place of the young man who had captured her heart. He was one-of-a-kind, and nothing could ever change that. But, after all this time, she couldn't help but think of one thing:

Who would have Harry Potter become after the defeat of Voldemort if he had lived instead?

_  
God knows how I miss you,  
All the hell I've been through,  
Just knowin' no-one could take your place.  
An' sometimes I wonder,   
Who'd you be today?  
_

Would he have gone on to become an auror or an internationally known seeker from some quidditch team? Would he have gone off with Ginny and have started a family of his own, one that he's wanted from his entire life?

And even such a silly thought of wondering just what he would've called his sons and daughters had come across her mind.

Hermione swore that she must have been loosing her mind or something, but… as much as she missed this young man, it didn't much mind to her if she was going insane from her lost love. She didn't care whether she would go to insane asylum, or if others would take pity on her like so many people did with Ginny, the ex-girlfriend who so tragically still loved the dead hero.

But she'd carry his memory on, no matter what. Whether in the loony-bin or out in the world, she would carry on the memory of Harry Potter- the one who cried, who loved, who laughed, who died little by little with each passing day…

That was the Harry Potter the world deserved to know. Not just the one who lost his life saving the world.

_  
Would you see the world?_

_Would you chase your dreams?  
Settle down with a family,  
I wonder what would you name your babies_

She looked up at the sky foolishly, hoping silently for a glimpse of the form of a dark haired young man, riding a broom, coming to see her once again. As stupid as it might've seemed to others, it was what kept her going, kept her moving.

She didn't care what others thought, but what he wanted was still fresh on her mind. He wouldn't have wanted a whole day commemorated to him, but it wasn't as if she herself could've stopped the ministry from doing so. No one understood his needs like she did, and she doubted from here on out that they would ever find out, let alone care, what he wanted.

_  
Some days the sky's so blue,  
I feel like I can talk to you,  
An' I know it might sound crazy.  
_

She leaned down and touched the stone tablet, which was always announcing to whoever was there to pay their respects that the savior of the wizarding world laid in death right there, inside that tomb. He was incased inside the crypt and would be forever immortalized by the heroic acts that he had done, as well as the fact that the young man had gotten a bronzed statue with a somewhat likeness to him.

She wished that he had more time to have existed in the world, instead of living just to die. Hermione supposed that was what had made it so bad for her to actually understand in these times. He didn't get a chance to actually live how he had wanted to.

_  
It ain't fair: you died too young,  
Like the story that had just begun,  
But death tore the pages all away. _

She held back the tears that threatened to spill once again, and she only smiled when she felt the memories return to her mind. There were so many good memories that they shared together, and that was all they would even be from here on out. Memories, forever to be remembered and not continued.

She didn't want to tell the world just how much she suffered from the loss of her greatest friend, how she wept every night. All she knew was that, to her, there wasn't ever going to ever be another hero who could ever match up to the courage, to the love that Harry held within himself.

The bushy haired young woman felt hot tears trail down her cheeks, unable to hold back the smile as she thought about how he might've followed his dream about becoming a seeker for an England quidditch team, about somehow making his late parents proud of him in some other way than becoming a murderer to the one that had murdered them. He had been so enthusiastic to become something people wouldn't expect of him, to be himself instead of some guy that only held onto his fame because he maybe had or would destroy the Dark Lord.

_  
God knows how I miss you,  
All the hell I've been through,  
Just knowin' no-one could take your place.  
An' sometimes I wonder,   
Who you'd be today?  
_

But she still had a life to live, and he still had his afterlife to continue. No matter how much it hurt to admit, he was dead and gone. Today, five years ago, he had been announced so. She just wished that she couldn't seen him one last time before the burial, that she could've gotten the courage up to tell her best friend just what she was keeping as a permanent unrequited love until all things would be solved.

_  
Today, today, today.  
Today, today, today.  
_

Hermione found herself once more looking up into the clouds, hoping once more that she could still find one more trace of the Man-Who-Died-Valiantly. She usually never wanted to come out today, but… she knew that she just had to hold on, to keep hoping, to keep on going out to greet the sun, no matter how depressed she might've been.

She knew that, no matter what, she'd be able to see Harry again someday, whether his death had been falsified by the ministry or in the afterlife, where she could once again greet the Boy-Who-Never-Smiled grinning at her once again, as if they were in their first year again.

_  
Sunny days seem to hurt the most.  
I wear the pain like a heavy coat.   
The only thing that gives me hope,  
Is I know I'll see you again some day.  
_

She didn't care when or where but… whenever she would see him again… she would finally tell him. Hermione Jane Granger would tell Harry James Potter that she loved him, and then smack him upside the head for making her worry like she had.

_  
Some day, some day, some day._


End file.
